Parshas Metzorah

Gated Communities1

This is the law of the metzora on the day of his purification: he
shall be brought to the kohen. The kohen will go forth, out of the camp, and
see that the nega of tzora’as has been healed…

Be’er Yosef: Who is going to whom? We understand that the metzora cannot be
purified other than by the pronouncement of the kohen. Somehow, the two of
them must meet up. The two phrases seem to contradict each other, however.
Is the metzora brought to the kohen, or does the kohen pay a house call on
the metzora? The Seforno has the two of them meet half way. The metzora, who
has been banished from the camp,is brought to some place close to its limits
where it will be convenient for the kohen to go out and examine him. Both
phrases are thus true at the same time.

We could resolve the contradiction simply. Not every metzora must leave the
camp. Yehoshua sanctified only walled cities with the sanctity of machaneh
Yisrael.2 Only metzora’im residing in those cities need to
exile themselves to outside the city limits. Both phrases are therefore
true, but in different circumstances. When a metzora hails from an unwalled
city, nothing prevents him from being brought directly to the kohen. Should
he reside in an ancient walled city, however, he is banished from the city,
and cannot return until pronounced cured. The kohen must then go out of the
city in order to meet the metzora.

We now confront a different question. Why would the Torah specify that the
metzora be banished only from walled cities? The gemara3 takes a
definite position on the reason for this punishment. The metzora was
stricken with tzora’as because he spoke lashon hora.4 The toxic
effect of such speech is to create friction between husband and wife,
between a fellow and his friend. Because he disrupted social cohesion and
distanced people from each other, the Torah punishes him by distancing him
from people, and denying him the privilege of social interaction. The
punishment fits the crime elegantly – but does not seem to allow for any
distinction between cities with walls or without them!

We may find an answer in another passage in the gemara5 , which
reports on Hashem expressing His displeasure with the loose tongue. “All
other limbs stand vertically; you lie flat. All others are external to Man’s
body; you have been sequestered internally. Moreover, I surrounded you with
two walls, one of bone and one of flesh. ‘What can He give to you, what can
He add to you, deceitful tongue?’6 ”

We can surmise that sending out the metzora specifically from walled cities
genuinely amounts to a punishment of midah keneged midah. The metzora
unleashed his tongue from a place whose two walls of bone and flesh (i.e.
teeth and lips) tend to safeguard against unlicensed speech. By breaching
those walls with lashon hora, he makes himself unworthy of living in cities
enhanced with special holiness that they owe to their walls.

This approach will help us understand a difficult passage in the
gemara7 regarding the period of the second beis hamikdosh. It
relates the ominous signs of impending disaster in the last forty years of
this Temple. The Yom Kippur lot for the goat inscribed “for Hashem” no
longer consistently came up in the right hand of the kohen gadol when he
plunged his hands into the ballot box. The crimson thread on the head of the
second goat no longer turned white; the ner ma’aravi no longer continued to
burn after the others had expired. The doors of the heichal opened on their
own, until R. Yochanan ben Zakai scowled at them, saying, “Why do you bother
frightening yourselves? I realize that you are ultimately going to be
destroyed. This was already prophesied by Zecharyah ben Iddo.”

With a single exception, all these signs represent some miraculous activity
that regularly occurred in the beis hamikdosh, but now ceased, as the end
drew near. The doors of the heichal – as reported in the same passage –
were huge. They opened and closed with great difficulty, and emitted a
deafening sound as they turned on their hinges. Opening on their own was
miraculous. As some of the old miracles ceased, Hashem provided a new one!
Why would this be?

The second beis hamikdosh was destroyed because of groundless enmity between
people.8 The Chofetz Chaim9 takes this to mean
lashon hora. Thus, it was the aveirah of lashon hora that caused the loss of
the Second Temple.

Nefesh ha-Chaim10 notes that the primary mikdash and place of
indwelling of the Shechinah is in Man himself. When this inner mikdash is
defiled, the external edifice of the mikdash no longer functions. Its
kedushah withdrawn, it only awaits a conqueror to set it afire.

Putting it all together, we realize that the second bayis was endangered by
Am Yisrael’s failure to maintaining the sanctity of the inner and outer
mikdash by restraining their tongues within the wall Hashem assigned to
them. To warn the people that their lashon hora would lead to the Temple’s
destruction, the door of the outer mikdash would breach the safeguarded
perimeter of the Heichal by opening on their own. (R. Yochanan ben Zakai
objected. What need did the doors have to go to such lengths? The navi
Zecharyah had already warned the people! If they disregarded the navi, why
would they pay attention to the doors?)

Using this theme of the tongue-encased-by-walls, we find new meaning in a
passage in Berachos,11 which instructs us to enter a shul “the
space of two doors” before we begin davening. The Rishonim offer several
explanations:12 we should not sit all the way in the back,
appearing ready to bolt outside; we should pause a short while and compose
our thoughts before beginning to daven; we should avoid the back rows that
offer a distracting view of the area outside. The Bach, however, opines on
the basis of a Yerushalmi, that a shul should have a vestibule in front of
the main shul, so that people who enter literally must pass through two
doors – the one from the street, and the one from the vestibule – before
entering the shul proper.

The Bach explains that we do this to emphasize the wonderful privilege of
tefilah. It is usually impossible for the common man to speak directly to
the person at the top of the command structure. Generally, to beseech the
king requires waiting in an anteroom, while some lesser official conveys the
request. Hashem, however, allow us to enter the second, inner room. We turn
this thought into shul architecture, by forcing everyone to pass through two
doors.

Our approach provides another dimension to this practice. R. Yonoson
Eybeschutz13 addresses our prefatory request before Shemonah
Esreih – “Hashem, open our lips.” He waxes lyrical in describing how Hashem
places our tongues behind two levels of protection, not just to prevent
lashon hora, but to help us reserve them for the holy purposes for which
they were intended: for Torah, for tefilah, for other forms of avodas Hashem.

When we enter the two doors of a shul or beis medrash, we remind ourselves
that we have arrived at a place where it is both safe and praiseworthy to
remove the walls around our tongues, and to use them for what they were
designed – to enhance the kavod of Hashem in this world.